Since the launch of the computer revolution decades ago, data has been steadily migrated or been duplicated to exist in electronic or digital form. Today, a very significant portion of personal or other information about many individuals or other entities exists in this form, and those individuals or entities have come to rely on the utility and convenience of computer-based data storage, since these data stores can be accessed by way of computer networks.
Given this growth and the convenience of computer-based archival storage of data, numerous data storage services have entered the marketplace. These data storage services typically host or maintain the data associated with the user in exchange for a service fee. While no data storage service has yet been able to guarantee perpetual archival storage of client data, these services do provide the capabilities to store data for a very long time. Over that time, it is conceivable that file formats of files included in the archive will become obsolete. Similarly, users themselves can also store data for a very long time, during which that associated data can become obsolete. Losing the ability to interpret the bits or bytes of the data can be the effective equivalent of losing the data itself.